Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

r JOSH WILSON () (): My question is to the Treasurer. How will the Albanese Labor government's electric car discount benefit Australians, and what are the risks to these benefits being realised?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for his important question. We are really excited about our policy on electric vehicles. It's been a pleasure to work closely with the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, because we're proud to be delivering something which will make electric cars cheaper in this country. We've got an electric car discount, which does two things: first of all, it removes the tariff; and secondly, it provides a fringe benefits tax exemption for eligible cars made available by employers for employees. The legislation before the House right now seeks to achieve the second part of this policy, and what it will do is cut the cost to employers of providing electric cars for people to use, cut the cost for workers of entering into these arrangements and help grow the market for affordable electric cars in Australia. For a model valued at about $50,000 it means a $9,000 benefit to an employer and a $4700 benefit to an employee. I want to thank members of the crossbench, who have been engaging with me and the minister not because we've got an identical view on every aspect of the policy but because we share the broader objectives on this policy.

The question for this House is: who could possibly oppose a tax cut to make electric vehicles cheaper for businesses and for workers in a way that increases the stock of electric vehicles in our country? The answer is obvious. It is disappointing but not especially surprising to learn that the geniuses opposite assembled in their party room yesterday and decided, after spending years and years talking about how taxes should be lower, that they would oppose a tax cut for electric vehicles. It says something about the bubble of bumbling incompetence that the shadow Treasurer floats around in that he has the nerve to ask a question of the Prime Minister immediately after the minister explained that we are trying to get our tax cut through this parliament.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hume will cease interjecting.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the Captain Clunker approach to electric vehicle policy. It's to pretend that they love lower taxes until they're asked to actually vote for it. They pretend they like lower taxes until it interferes and collides with their outdated, obsolete, out-of-touch ideology. There is no reason to oppose this legislation except that they physically cannot bring themselves to support a good idea, and this is what we see from the leader of the leftovers over here—a pretty clear pattern. He boycotted the jobs summit and now he's boycotting the future. They aren't the Liberal Party anymore; they're the Luddite party. They have a leader who is deadset on division, defined by his denial, his division and his destruction, fronting the dregs of a departed government that the Australian people ditched for a reason.